Between the Twilights/Chapter 12
XII
GARDEN FANCIES
Everyone in India is familiar with the homely little Tulsi—the sacred basil—with its aromatic brown spirals and dull green leaves. It was sprawling across the drive of a house I had newly come to tenant, and while my Mali and I did tidyings in the Garden, I spoke to him gently about the plant. “Move the sacred garden-person. Suppose some day we drove over it and hurt it, quite by accident, what sin! See, put it in a new hole yonder, by your own hut if you wish.” He is a holy man, my Mali, from Puri, where dwells Jagannath of the Car with his Brother and Sister; and he will not touch the Tulsi till he has bathed, saving for it his first draught of water of mornings. I could only hope that my good intentions were credited. But he made no sign beyond a reverence to the Tulsi, and a wagging of his head from side to side, which I interpreted as “Forgive me” (to the plant), “do I not eat the Huzoor’s salt? It is an order” (for me).
Notwithstanding, the Tulsi moved not, and frequent reminders at last elicited a reason. “It would take a ceremony and a very holy man to transplant the sacred Tulsi.”
“Bring him; make the ceremonies,” I entreated, stipulating only that I should be present.
So, next morning he brought the holy man, and they sat, both of them on their heels, beside the bush, and read it some sacred texts about Jagannath and his colleagues; then they explained to it the situation, my wishes, its own danger … and with many mutterings of magic words they carried the plant to the new place.
The rest of the ceremony was fixed for “the hour of union,” and when all was ready I was duly summoned. Little earthen pots, fed with oil, in which floated a cotton wick, made great illuminations about the Mali’s hut.
The Tulsi sat in its hole, and gathered about it in apology and propitiation were the Mali’s gardening tools; the basket, mouth to earth, holding a light, a brass plate of sugar biscuits and parched rice, and a pot of Ganges water. … He made an offering of the tools and foodstuffs, and last of all of a handful of lovely white lilies. These he crushed among the brown roots, bruising them, burying them—who shall say what symbol he had in his mind? then he watered the plant, muttering, and finally settled once more on his heels and read it a little pink book of invocations to the God of the Car—read it from cover to cover—there by the light of the little earthen lamp on the basket.
When he made himself into a huddled-up pillow before the tree, head pressed against the newly-raked earth, I knew the ceremony was over. What was most extraordinary was his utter unselfconsciousness. He had been pleased that I should come, had begged it; but at his “God-worship,” my presence was completely forgotten. The ritual was more than form of game. How cruel to suggest to such as he, then, the thought in my mind, that the Tulsi probably owed its sacred origin and place in every Hindu courtyard to its efficacy in keeping away mosquitos!
I wondered what reason my Purdahnashin would give me for the worship of the Tulsi. I would ask. Curiosity was rewarded with a beautiful story. Why did she hold the Tulsi holy? It was only because it was the wife of the Great God. Did I not know the tale? Listen then. Once upon a time lived a great Giant who had a beautiful wife, and was successful in conquering and possessing himself of everything he wished.
In his pride of conquest he forgot all limits and claimed the wife of the Destroyer himself. Then the Great God, angry, came himself to earth to punish the Giant, and slew that powerful one as he lay beside his bride in all his security of possession. But when the poor lady walked forth to make living sacrifice of herself, as was meet, upon the dead body of her lord—it was the Great God himself who was enamoured of her, and he sat by the burning corpse disconsolate. None could drag him back to heaven; nor moved he night and day till the object of his love had found new form in the sweet-smelling Tulsi, with its soft green leaves and brown flowering spirals, struggling upwards to the light.
“Forget not the perfume of the Tulsi. The customs of your race, in marrying, in dying, in loving …” sang my friend. “It means all that to us who sprinkle it with water in the morning.” ***** But in my little garden there was no holy Tulsi to sprinkle with water in the morning! Transplanting suiteth not the aged: and the friend of the Garden-people appeared before me sad and shaven.
“My Mother is dead, and at my hands: have I leave to carry her to the waters of oblivion?”
Leave, of course: but let the blame be rightly fixed; not the worshipper, but the Huzoor, she who ordered, carried the sin. This did not satisfy, as I would have wished: and it was not till many days later that the faithful slave brought me a cleared brow, and his mountain top of philosophy.
“But to him who does not deem it sin it is not sin.”
Now is that what the sacred plant will now say henceforth and for ever to my lover of ceremonies in his garden, and am I responsible for the dangerous doctrine? I wonder.